 Good afternoon and welcome. My name is Molly Martin and I'm the director of New America Indianapolis and welcome to today's episode of inside out where we take stories of Hoosier innovators and use them to inspire action across Indiana and across the country. Today we'll be talking about youth blood policy in the heartland and I'm really excited to be joined today by our partners at voices court and by two youth policy fellows I'll introduce those in just a moment. New America is a non partisan nonprofit think tank based in Washington DC, but I make my home here in Indianapolis, and I'm so honored and glad to be able to bring you exceptional stories from here in the middle of the country. So today my partners and sharing those stories include Kia Wright, who is the founder and executive director of voices corps and she'll tell us a little bit more about voices in a moment. Lauren hall who's on the leadership team at voices and also is doing some work with New America Indianapolis this year, and our guests of honor, our youth policy fellows Rachel lobby and Tiffany young who are going to share a little bit of their experience as youth advocates participants in the voices youth policy fellowship and their insights for those of you out there looking to build a program like this, or become advocates yourselves. We believe in the power of youth lead policy and we believe that policy should be drawn with the community, not just in mind but by your side and as integral parts to that design to kick us off today. I'd love to hear from Kia Wright about our partners about voices and so Kia I'm going to come to you first. I'd love to hear more about who you are, what voices is and kind of why we're having this conversation about what we call hashtag youth America if you're participating with us online. Kia take it away. Hi everybody for allowing us this opportunity I'm really excited for everyone to hear from our youth fellows. My name is here right. I started voices in 2010. My background was in juvenile probation, and it really grew out of frustration. I was a school based officer here on the east side of Indianapolis. So all the youth that were either suspended or expelled came to our location. I got calls from in the classroom about fighting cussing gang activities. A lot of crime that was happening in the streets of our city. It was really trying to figure out a way to get to the root causes of what was going on with the kids. It started out as an after school art program at the time all of my friends were artists, and I found art to be incredibly healing and therapeutic and that equalizer to kind of get to truth. Through their artwork, through their poetry, through their music, we found so many underlying issues and a lot of underlying trauma that they were experiencing. And we wanted to create programming that centered their experiences and began to give them advocacy over the care and treatment that they were receiving and so that's really the crux of voices is really getting to the root cause of what's happening in our cities and our schools, and giving kids the tools to advocate for change and be able to center their experiences. Excellent. That's so interesting. I hope if you have questions out there in the audience about voices that you'll hop into the chat and I hope you'll continue the conversation while we chat online here. So, Kea, based on what you just said, it sounds like beyond finding kind of a therapeutic restorative moment for youth here in Indianapolis and in Indiana, you're really interested in making sure youth understand their power. Is that fair? Absolutely. I think every, a lot of places have been focused on trauma informed care. And that is basically recognizing that a harm or injury had happened to a person, and that there needed to be some kind of therapeutic resolve from that. Our agency moved to a healing centered engagement, and that's really getting to the root of the problem, healing as a collective and making sure that they know that they have power and advocacy over the change and making sure that that power is rooted in their identity individually of who they are. Fantastic. Well, I know we're lucky enough to have two of your youth partners here with us today. And so I'm going to pivot to you, Rachel and Tiffany, to share a little bit about what brought you to voices and the sort of work that you do there. You know, I'm going to just kind of pick it out of the air. Tiffany, I'm going to start with you. Okay, nice to meet everyone. My name is Tiffany. I am a high school senior. And I decided to join voice because I wanted to make a change. And at least among the people I knew a lot of people were relatively apathetic, they believed that the government wouldn't do anything that they couldn't do a lot. And so I wanted to be able to help the community in some way. And so I ended up joining this and through this I've been able, I've ended up joining yes. And through yes, I ended up being able to affect change any positive way to help my community. That's great. Rachel, how about you? I saw some nodding. I learned about voices when an associate of mine explained the program to me and offered for me to become a yes fellow. And ever since seventh grade human trafficking is something I've always cared about. I started off with written advocacy, sending letters to fashion brands questioning them about gender. So when I heard about voices and the program they offer, I thought I could actually create policies and inform youth across Indiana. So I decided to enter and I was admitted and I've been able to join a labor trafficking subcommittee and speak to hundreds of representatives to broaden my message and to get awareness out there. Great. And Rachel, you're also a high school senior. Yes. Fantastic. That's amazing. So you both have been in this advocacy life for a minute and found this great outlet through yes. So you've both mentioned yes and Lauren, I'd like to come to you to tell us a little bit more about the yes fellowship of voices how it works and and who participates. Yes, it's a privilege to do it and full kudos to our youth fellows to Kia's leadership and a systems level. It has been truly a highlight of my career so far. I started as an in classroom educator, similar to Kia felt that systems were not set up well for students to thrive holistically felt that to your point Molly power. There were so many things that in so much time being invested, figuring out structure to limit youth power. And I love what I love about our work at voices. Yes, you know, empowering youth to have a critical role in our community is that we are constantly asking ourselves how do we create the structures for youth to manifest and expand their power and so really it comes down to taking them through what it means to go through personal change, do some of that healing, you know, analyze and understand how their personal story, then adds to collective change and then systemic change. You know, I do a lot of these events. I'm great. Lucky enough to do this with Indianapolis frequently. This is the most concise group I have ever worked with it's amazing we're going to sail through this and cover a lot of ground so I really appreciate it. So when we talk about this, going through healing while you're also making change for your community. Rachel, could you reflect a little bit on what it was like to kind of bring a lot of passion and maybe a little bit of sadness and anger, and remain reflective remain really focused on policy change that seems like it would be a hard balance. Well at the beginning of yes fellows we focused on storytelling and explaining our perspectives on the systems we've been in. So I was in the group of educational and economic inequity. So all of our proposals would center around that one topic. And so we had homeless people in our group, people who are involved in the foster care system people who dealt with financial issues. And so we wanted to think about those stories, their tales, and make change. So for example one of the proposals we had was a personal financial responsibility class that would be required and Indiana, because we didn't want children to have to go through the same issues they had seen their parents go through, or if they didn't even have parents from the issues they had to go through by themselves. So we just want to be productive and make sure no other kids had to go through what they had to go through. And my topic, labor trafficking was very different than the other topics, but we were able to provide two main proposals, and then other sub proposals. So we were able to match all of our passions into one major proposal which was the personal financial responsibility class. So we just all had to work together, and this was my first time actually working with a team to accomplish something. Usually I had just an advocacy by myself, but I learned that working with a team really is helpful, because you're going to notice things that you have never even thought about they're going to give you ideas. They're going to give you different perspectives and that's really important when you are on your journey to becoming an advocate. That's a great point and certainly having lots of different lived experiences around the table seems to really matter to get to a clear proposal. So tell us a little bit more Rachel. It sounds to me and in my observation because I've gotten to see a couple sessions of the policy fellows, you come together around certain affinity groups. And you've explained a little bit more about yours, you discuss potential ideas you share personal stories center on an idea. Then what do you do once you came up with this proposal for the financial literacy class, what was next. After we came up with our proposal, we did additional research just to make sure to truly understand the issue and make sure our proposal would have the impact we wanted to. And we decided to start on our presentation because we would be presenting to hundreds of policymakers across Indiana. So we wanted to be striking so we started off with personal stories. And so we started off with personal stories about some of the issues people in our groups have faced. For example, the person in the foster care system they talked about their experience and all of their debt, they had numbers of their debt. So that was really important to actually make an impact and to make it memorable. So that's what we started off with but we just focused on the flow of the presentation statistics, personal stories, other facts, just so we could use pathos logos and eat those all together. Really good, really insightful. Now Tiffany, we've talked a lot already about the importance of personal storytelling, when you're making a compelling, compelling policy case and both you and Rachel were kind enough to share your own stories at the New America Indianapolis blog and to help motivate change. If you'd like to, if you're willing to, I'd love for you to share a little bit about your personal story and how it's motivated your own advocacy, and also a little bit about how you worked up the courage to share a personal story in a public setting. Okay. Yeah, growing up, I had dealt with mental illness for a long time. I did not realize that it was mental illness. My parents, the people around me, they told me that, oh, that this is not a problem that you are simply being a teenager or a child, you need to grow up, you need to get grit and things like that. And so because of these beliefs, because of stigma that I'd encountered from other people, concerning mental health and mental illness, I was not able to get treatment for a very long time. And it wasn't until I got treatment that it became very, very clear to me how important the community and the role, how important the community and family played in essentially delaying my treatment and making it much more difficult for me to get the help that I needed. And so I ended up meeting other people who had similar experiences, who were told by others that, oh, you don't have mental illness, or that this is not important, that you need to focus on school or something. And so this made me very upset. I hated how it was because of cultural stigma, how a lot of misconceptions about mental health, permeated the community, and made people say things that were insensitive, offensive, and ultimately sometimes led to deeply harmful effects on other people. And so I kind of channeled this anger, this frustration at this system into helping others. So I worked with my team at Yes, we shared stories about what happened to us, what other people had told, what other people had told us, and how treatment had ultimately helped us. And it was through this vulnerability with each other that we were able to create a very strong group with really powerful bonds. And through that we were able to create a proposal concerning mental health and illness education and treatment in Indiana schools. And we used this proposal and spoke to hundreds of legislators at a summit. And so on, we worked with Rep Vanessa Summers to create this bill to turn this proposal into a bill, and then we submitted this to the Indiana Legislative Assembly. And currently I'm working with my amazing team to advocate for a very specific House bill, House bill 1444, which proposes having mental health professionals in Indiana. And I would encourage everyone, by the way, who is watching today to check out new america.org slash Indianapolis where you can find work by Rachel and by Tiffany and hear a little bit more about their stories and their ideas. And as you're listening to two of your youth partners here, talk about being so vulnerable and the importance of vulnerability. I'd love to hear from you as a practitioner and a leader. What could we as kind of working mid career folks learn about the power of vulnerability in social change from our guests from voices from folks that you see. And one, and I think both of the young ladies on here spoke to it, it takes a lot of courage to share and to get this deep with folks that don't know you and Rachel and Tiffany did an amazing job, you know, off the bat with that. Karen and I were very intentional when we were creating this yes program and that we wanted it to be kids that were impacted by some level of the system, education, mental health, foster care juvenile delinquency, because we find ourselves in these spaces where it's all adults right, and we're talking about what's best for kids we're talking about, you know, things that they need to be doing but we're not taking the time to recognize that they are the experts. We're literally living in these conditions, you know, going through these changes every single day. But as adults, we have these blinders on sometimes that we know is best simply because we're over the age of 21 and that doesn't always qualify us to tell kids how they know what they need to do. And part of what you know we really try to do is build up, you know, their confidence and affirm who they are part of healing to the engagement is affirming the uniqueness in all of our young people, affirming all of the talents and treasures that they have and making sure that they know that they are not the worst experience or thing that they did, right. And that's really what this program was about is teaching them how to voice that, and how to, you know, find courage in themselves and how that is going to help other people. You know, for me that's really what equity looks like and that's really what shifting the power, when we're talking about systemic change looks like let's put that power back into the communities into the young people that it's an impacting. And so I was very proud of Tiffany and Rachel for having the courage to stand up, tell their story, and be able to like you, you know, alluded to Miley follow through with that. I've told you my story now what are you going to do about it, you know, we're not just gonna leave them hanging right. And so I think that's what we want everyone that is in these youth serving worlds to understand that it's not just what this kid did it's not just what happened to this child you have to look at the holistic of this situation of the person and look at the systems that have been created that allow these things to continue to happen. And let's take our advice from the people that is being impacted the most. That's a great point. Yeah, don't do it for me without me right you know pretty important adage in life. I have a question that I've gotten Kia, and question that I've had personally when thinking about building a youth oriented and youth led policy program is for the safety of the youth involved we've talked a little bit about the ways that you provide healing orientation and safety through voices. Are there other safety concerns that people out there considering building a program should have in mind. Absolutely. One of the things that I think is always critical when we allow our youth into these adult spaces is that training or conversation beforehand. They have to know, you know what triggers are, you know what I mean what can you ask you make sure that you are asking permission, you know before you touch on certain subjects and being aware that there are so many environmental and so many emotional triggers that can happen. Also, you know, us understanding that once we get this level of relationship building with, you know, our young people, things are going to come out. And so there has to be clear boundaries on what our expectations are as youth providers what we have to, you know, say what we have to do to protect them, but also creating that safe space. And so that's just put it, you know, Lauren can talk a little bit more about it we are very selective of the adults that we allowed to interact with our young people for that reason, you know, we just there's a tendency, well what happened, what happened, what happened, and you know sometimes that doesn't get to the point with how can I help this how can I make that better. That's a great point and I think as a person with a little bit of background in journalism, you do have to be cautious right when you're getting to the bottom of something that you aren't causing further harm. And Lauren Kia mentioned that you might have some reflection on that and how you might counsel folks on how to make sure the right adults are in the room to receive some of this policy feedback and I'd love to hear more about how you make sure it's the right set of adults. All right, and I don't know that. I think all humans are in flux. And so I do think that any adults at a point in their journey can be ready to engage with youth. I think it is, you know, as he is mentioning about an orientation that the adults go into the room with, because we do I have some adults who are deeply well intentioned, whether they be at the State House or in the classroom or in a youth serving organization who are deeply well intentioned and do not have the orientation of, of healing right so again I we're bringing up a lot I want to give huge kudos and to the name that we're talking about healing centered engagement. It's a theory it's a model it's an approach that Dr. Sean Jen right created and it has been a real treat to follow him throughout his career as, as a scholar and as a practitioner you know he, he's kind of come up with a lot of educators in my social circles who see that we have to heal kids. We have to make sure that adults are doing their own healing, because stickiest point kids have triggers, so do adults, and we've seen that happen. And so I think it's really critical to, yes, choose adults who are at the right place in their own development and their own processing, who are genuinely there because they want to contribute to creating structures that manifest and expand youth power. And that means that they are not over focused on the trauma, but they are actually focused on the assets of youth. And that's a key, key element of healing centered engagement is that, yes, we do we have to acknowledge the trauma that individuals have experienced. We also have to expand our understanding and realize that our society is not well, it is not, you know, Tiffany's individual struggle or Rachel's individual struggle or mine or key is or anyone's right it is actually a collective issue if all of us are not well and so I think that collective orientation is also really critical to the way in which we bring people into talk with our youth and the community we create with our youth. That's great and you talk about community a lot and and all of you have talked about your teams, and now you haven't done any of this alone and Rachel I'd like to come back to you. You've talked a little bit about the lived experiences that some of your teammates have had who are helping you craft this policy. Tell us a little bit more about if I'm in the room. What are the ages of my teammates what are the backgrounds of my teammates is everybody live in Indianapolis. Some of the folks are currently experiencing how homelessness, a little more technicolor around who's in the in the room with you. Well in yes fellows something they really value is diversity. So the age range is huge. I'm a high school senior but ninth grade, and their people involved. They heavily value diversity and you can also see that in location. It's from all around Indiana. So it's not just in the. I'm sure to include people of all different backgrounds but particularly people who have been involved in systems and who have stories that can help improve those systems. You know Rachel that's interesting to me when I was able to sit in with one of the guests meeting something I noticed is like you said not everyone was located here in Indianapolis and for those watching who might not be from Indiana, there are really big leaps between say Indianapolis Fort Wayne and other metro areas, you go from a very large place to a very small one pretty quickly in Indiana. So Rachel and Tiffany and Tiffany I'll start with you and then come back to Rachel. Do you have any reflections from your peers about how much harder it is or easier it is, or maybe it's the same to get help or find connection for youth in smaller towns in Indiana. Do you have some small town teammates who have had some stories that you want to make sure we hear. Yeah, I would say that for smaller towns. Some people on my team they've had great experiences and some others had very negative experiences. It really depended on the person and their experience for example, some schools that were smaller were able to allocate some of their resources to something that they knew were problems. For example, some of them were able to have access to funding and have like access to school personnel that could help them on their mental health journey, while other students they did not have that and some even encountered teachers who said things like, Oh, you don't have depression because teenagers can't have depression. And so, depending on the different areas. They had very positive experiences that were very welcoming and very community based and focused, and others were full of misconceptions. Sure. Rachel other reflections from you. Well in my group, most people were from very metropolitan areas, like Indy. So the biggest problem for them wasn't necessarily the resources, but actually getting them and actually knowing about them. So not just whether it was a small town or a large town. That's a good point I think access whether it's transportation or awareness, or an adult who could help you navigate it when you need to. That's a, that's a real problem, whether you're in a small place or a large place. I also heard in in observing some of the yes conversations that if you're in a smaller community and that community could be a neighborhood in a large metro or it could just be a small town. It can be hard when everyone knows what's going on with you and everyone has an opinion about what's going on with you and so one of the things I have to imagine would be good about having the yes community is coming to a place where folks are really committed to your healing and your privacy. So on the question of commitment to healing Kia. What do you think people typically misunderstand about trauma informed and healing centered education and youth advocacy. Misunderstanding, I think it's just different approaches. You know what trauma informed it's very focused on the harm and the injury and it's almost deficit based. And the biggest difference, you know with healing centered is that it's just more asset driven right here locally in Indianapolis. A lot of our students are from Department of Child Services or juvenile probation, we have a lot of gun violence here in the city. We have a lot of those kids involved with the gun violence and addiction and things like that. There isn't a tendency to solely focus on them carrying a gun or lashing out in some form right there isn't a tendency to say that this kid is a leader. This kid could be a mentor for younger kids in the neighborhood to prevent the gun violence to prevent you know these things from occurring. And so I think if there is a misconception, it is that they aren't trying to identify if that makes sense, you know what I mean it's more of this is what happened let's push them through probation let's push them through the courts or whatever system that they're connected to. But I don't think there's a tendency to say, how do we teach these skills that they're getting on the streets anyway, and make those skills transferable to be become more productive. So if there's a lesson that we do here with our day reporting kids will get kids in for dealing drugs and things like that I'm like you're a great salesman. You have great math skills, you have great person people skills, you know, and so I think it's just really shifting the view of how we look at these kids and I think that's what healing centered engagement gives us it gives us a fresh eye to see people and to see what those skills are not make excuses for their behavior, but how do we cultivate the things that they're naturally good at and turn that into things where they can show up differently in the world. I love that margin, you know between kind of traits and behavior, because it seems to me that yeah whether it's entrepreneurialism or sales skills or being incredibly networked or organized or able to stay busy. There's a lot when you're trying to survive and I know a lot of systems involved youth feel the pressure of trying to survive as well as thrive. So, Rachel when when you think back to the first time you were going to advocate face to face with a lawmaker or someone who has kind of a traditional sense of power. Were you scared, were you nervous. Because I would consider myself a shy individual, but I learned that when I speak about something I care about I'm not necessarily shy. What advice would you give to someone who's watching right now who's maybe 15 who is excited or worried about an issue, but the idea of going to the State House just rattles them what would you say. Ultimately, don't make it about yourself, even if you are nervous because it's about the victims, everyone who's been a victim, everyone who's had to struggle. So don't focus on your own worries, focus on the change you can make and the people you can affect positively. Rachel I needed that today anyway so thank you. That's really insightful. Tiffany a related question when I walk into a State House or the US Capitol or any sort of traditional place of power. I've been waiting, even though I've spent 43 years wandering in and out of places. So talk to me about the importance of walking into spaces do you have any reflections on what it's like for a young person to walk into these kind of marble halls these hard to navigate places. Were you at ease did you need advice would you have advice for folks who who manage public spaces but how to make it more accessible. When you walk into any of those grand spaces, it's extremely overwhelming, especially if it's the first time, because usually everywhere it's really normal looking and then suddenly you go into this almost temple like a grandiosity. I would say in general, don't be scared the people there they're all wearing suits they all look really serious. They're not that intimidating like their people to and they're in this position because they do care and they do want to make change. So don't be as scared. Figure out what works for you and how like you calm down, depending on the person it can be really different. I know some people, they like to practice their whole pitch like 30 minutes before other people they like to play games. Some people go for a run beforehand, if they can. So try to find what really works for you because that's different for everyone. Don't be intimidated by the people you're talking with and understand that they really do care and they're willing to listen. I mean after all they did have an appointment with you so they are taking the time out their day to listen to what you want to say. That's a great orientation. Lauren, I know you well enough to know that you've been in and out of a lot of advocacy spaces and formal and informal spaces alike. Lauren, what drives you crazy when you walk into these hyper formal spaces about ways they are and aren't accessible or welcoming. I think it's interesting because yeah referencing what Rachel and Tiffany said about how one equips themselves into those spaces. I think, particularly with the insurrection on the Capitol, you know, I think I'm in a new understanding of what those spaces mean and what they look like. I think we both need to hold on to the fact that it is special to serve community and your people it is special and it is, I think, you know, Tiffany use the term temple. I'm not going, you know, too much into the religion, religion, religiosity of things. I do think it's very sacred and we should continue to honor the fact that people are serving and that is meaningful. And I think we should also acknowledge that spaces should be human should be accessible. And that's about how we help individuals take themselves seriously I mean I to your point Molly I have been in different advocacy spaces I have been woefully under prepared to enter most of them. And I think it's just been a real pleasure to be able to transfer some of that learning on to young people and hear their wisdom and insights as well. Because I think, you know, it's, it's often that we are either taking ourselves too seriously or not seriously enough. And I think the more that we build ourselves in communities of advocacy, as we've been so intentional about doing within youth fellows I think the better able we are to be relaxed, be the right level of seriousness and step into those spaces with our full critical hope and humanity. And just to add on that Molly if it's okay real quick. One thing that I think Lauren and I were very intentional about specifically with our young ladies of color was to take up space, right. You know, there's a lot of tables that we are sitting at where we are over talked. And that messes you know with your mind and your confidence and things like that and so, again, why we are so proud of Tiffany and Rachel is taking up that space because they are the experts of making sure that we teach that really early on. I love that taking up space and knowing your your value and your expertise can I want to stay with that with you for a minute. Are there ways you think women, especially let's just stay with women can support each other around a table at a moment like that. Absolutely. I think you all have been in meetings with me before. But for me that taking up space means a lot of different things. It's one bringing your ideas and your fullness to those spaces right and making sure that you are not overlooked. In terms of women supporting each other that's making sure that you're bringing other women to those tables with you, you are encouraging you are sharing resources you are sharing wealth. There's, we have a lot of battles to fight outside of just being women. I'm a big champion of us sticking together and making sure that we're supporting and encouraging that encouraging each other. And all the young ladies that we work with in the program we make sure that that is forefront in their minds that they are powerful that they are needed and that they are necessary. And so just trying to build that and making sure that they spread that as well and that they're always bringing another woman with them. I love that advice. One thing that I have found interesting in my career I don't know if it's been challenging because just to be candid. I have a lot on my side and recognize the power of kind of white privilege or parents who went to college. Other things you know blonde hair you know different spaces are different ways but the way you present yourself in certain formal spaces is a challenge for all kinds of people. Women people with different gender identities people sexuality I'm sure for lots of men certainly people of different race and ethnicity. And then those questions are about names or hair or earrings or clothing. How much and I want to hear from everybody I'm going to start with Rachel. How much do you think people should adapt to the spaces they're going to versus pushing the spaces to change you know Rachel in terms of going in and bringing your full self. If you're presenting yourself in a new space you need to be subtle if you do want to change the aura of the space. But if you don't have much power within the space you should probably conform at least a little bit because those are probably people who aren't used to interacting or working with people like you so you need to be cautious of that because there is a cultural difference. That's really interesting so that's that's a pretty pragmatic take and certainly someone who has the maturity to see how things have gone. Tiffany what would you say. Again I would say it kind of depends on the person if you can try to figure out like this company this person who you're meeting with figure out what they're like if you can, and if you know what this person is kind of like, then perhaps try to basically alter your space to what would ideally fit them if they are the ones that are ultimately in the position of power. If you can't do that which I think is more realistic honestly. Try to balance yourself so don't like. So for example, don't walk in wearing a rainbow suit or something at a funeral try to be appropriate. You know the culture of this occasion, and but also try to like keep parts of yourself as well. Don't just erase your whole identity like keep parts of yourself that you think are really important and that you value because you should never sacrifice that sort of thing for someone else. So much more pragmatism and wisdom. Kia I'd love to hear what you think. So this was a lesson that I got right after undergrad. I was living in Terre Haute, Indiana, attending Indiana State University working on my masters and I was inter interning with the juvenile probation department. I had this massive fro that was so cute. I had grown this fro out probably for about eight years right couldn't tell me anything with this afro. And so they were all used to me. After I graduated, they offered for me to interview so I go in for my interview, and my hair was straight. And the lady interview me was a white woman she's like, What happened to your afro. And I told her that I was taught that in corporate America that that type of hairstyle was not acceptable. I was straightening my hair so that I would fit into the culture more she was like have you lost your mind. We loved you for you, you know what I mean we didn't care about your hair. You know that was one of the things that we loved most about you because it was just part of who you were. And I carried that for a long time and it really taught me that. I guess there is some form of, you know, conformity when you're going into certain spaces but at the end of the day, you know who I am is going to shine through that, you know, where I'm not going to be. I cannot worry about being judged about clothing and things like that, that it's my intellect, my ability that is what it's going to stand out even now when I go into spaces. I'm a dreadlocks, you know, black woman with dreadlocks and I do get those looks, and I had to really develop that self confidence like this is it this is what you get like what we get Lauren how about you. Yeah, no I just, it's funny. So, we're not going to share all the things that happened in our also sacred youth fellows meetings but we actually had it's sort of internal disagreement about this. I don't know if you guys remember this but we had some folks that were very adamant that we needed to disrupt stereotypes and sort of systems of expectation by wearing, you know, things that self expressed, but things that were maybe not traditionally as valuable, worthy, knowledgeable, etc in that space. And I think, you know, as an educator and as a person who is, you know, amidst all of my becoming and developing as a leader and a collective leader, I think, you know, creating reflective processes for folks is really the goal of our work because as much as it's fantastic. When we can call each other up or text each other, you don't always have someone to rely on in that exact moment so creating the reflective processes of why am I making this decision, how am I going to lean into the decision once I make it, etc have been really powerful and I'll just name the, because I think this might be helpful for folks who are thinking about doing this type of program across the country. We often bring up the scale of like where how are you feeling about making change today are you like, we need to burn it all down and everything is over and I it's just it needs to be burned down or are you status quo I think everything's great right. Most of the time we're all somewhere in the middle, but being reflective about where we are and asking ourselves why is that is it because I need to do some of my own healing. You know, do I want to burn everything down because I don't have enough supports in that moment or I don't have community to advocate for this issue where I feel isolated in a certain community to be my full self. I feel status quo because everything's working for me and how do I interrogate that. What privileges might I have in those spaces that is allowing me to feel like the way things are as good enough. So creating that reflective process, I think is a real goal because over time that allows us as individuals in a collective to interrogate ideas and move forward with intentionality and as a full group. That's a good insight, you know, all of you are making me think a little bit about coming into spaces where you may have power or maybe new and, and my adage is always easy for me to say, you know, it's easy for me to say that I would go in and be my full authentic self and be disruptive knowing that it's always been pretty safe for me to do so and so to the extent that those of us who can make those spaces safe or different. So those of you out in the audience who have that power I hope we can think about that so that those reflective processes continue to matter but so that folks don't ever doubt that what they are and how they are is authentically the way they can present. So here in the last 15 minutes or so of our conversation you know I want to take advantage of the fact that we have a bit of a so called captive audience watching folks who are interested in policy and interested in change that's why they're listening today. So I want to ask all of you to kind of think of having a magic wand and making that one big policy change that you think really would change outcomes for young people in Indiana what is your your queen for a day your king for a day, you get to wave your hand, XYZ law has changed rule has changed practices changed. I'm going to give you a minute to reflect on it how you would use your your magical powers. And I hope folks in the audience are thinking about it as well and feel free to share those in the chat. Okay, Kia made the cardinal error of looking me in the eyes so she has to go first care. That's a hard one. That is a really hard one. If I think close about where it starts. For a lot of the students that we're working with its poverty. But I don't know what that sweeping thing would be but it's definitely to address the lack of education and employment opportunities in our neighborhoods and making sure that they all have equal access to get them out of survival into thriving. Nothing we do nothing we say or is going to land and stick until folks can have safe housing can eat and feel safe. Tiffany, how about you. There are two things that come to mind. The first is to have an educational campaign concerning mental health and illness. And the second is to have an educational campaign that's targeted towards everyone, not just schools, but also the community because a lot of the times treatment can be stalled. It could be started by the school and then it can be stalled by an immigrant community by a family. And so I would like an educational campaign that's targeted towards everyone to understand these things. Somehow the ability to be able to afford to access to have the time, the transportation to get the mental health they need. Great, great. And actually, stay stay with me Rachel and Lauren hang in Tiffany there's actually a question in the chat that relates to that so so I want to stick with you here about mental health we actually have a pediatrician on listening and kind of curious. What you would have wished your doctor or caregiver had done differently when you were younger and what you might advise this pediatrician to be on the lookout for or think about doing for their young patients. Yeah, sure. For me personally I did not get a mental health therapist until 10th grade and it was after a, let's just say traumatic instant for me and my family. Before that, I didn't really talk about I didn't really like talk to any professionals about the sort of thing. Because, first of all, I just didn't have a lot of contact with these people so I didn't feel comfortable talking about this sort of thing. I think a lot of people have a similar thing like they're basically strangers a lot of time, you see them a few times a year, you really want to talk about something as personal as your mental health. In my case personally, I did not really trust my pediatric my pediatrician I still don't really trust her to be honest. And it was largely because she didn't really have. And she didn't really, she basically espoused several misconceptions about mental illness and mental health, and largely took the beliefs of the people around me over what I said I experienced. I guess I would recommend really listening to the patient the person that is the the person that is the one with like the illness with like the health issue, listen to them first, and then take in other people's input like the parent the community, but do that second listen to the person first. Thank you Tiffany that's so helpful. Rachel kind of coming back to the original premise about that that magic wand what big change would you like to make. Well, although I am passionate about human trafficking. I think I would choose something else that could lead to other changes. So I'm in between three right now, one would be tighter gun control, because I think gun violence in this country is sickening, and it happens every day. There are children who are victims. And sometimes it feels like we value the weapon more than people's lives. One thing I would choose is prison reform, because there are many people who go in and out, but then they don't have the opportunities to advance themselves educationally or economically. So I think that's really important. And also mental health in schools, because I see in my own community, children who are depressed or suicidal. Some of them have anxiety but no one believes them, or their parents refuse to accept it. So just having someone that they can talk to that they're comfortable with at school, I think that's really important. Thank you so much. And actually, Rachel, I want to stay with you for a minute. Again, something that is coming through the chat. That's more a global question about your teammates and how they engage but you mentioned, you're speaking really vulnerably and openly about some things that are often hard to talk about. And stereotypically sometimes those things are especially hard for young boys to talk about. And so when you think about women in policy leadership in your own program or just in your experience, as a peer of some of these young men, what's a good way to make sure that they feel safe to be vulnerable and engage in a process like this? One way is opening up first, because what I learned in the Yes Fellows was when one person started talking about their personal experiences, other people felt more welcome to talk about their own. And so we just had lots of stories being shared, especially the first few Yes Fellows sessions. So that's the best way. Yeah, and kind of eyeballing it Rachel is a peer. Are there an equal number of young men and young women in the Yes Fellows program? Is it tilted one way or the other? I think it's pretty equal. I think you're getting some nods from Kea and Lauren. Okay, thank you. That's really helpful. Lauren, coming back to you and circling back to the magic wand, what are you going to use your power for? Well, I am taking notes as an educator and I'm like, I will give them statistics. So Rachel, you never have to like wait for me and Kea to nod. Just in terms of statistics of our group, we have 14 to 23 year olds had every age in that spectrum. This is the density of the age group you see here, Tiffany and Rachel, and they are from 14 different counties across the state of Indiana, spanning the entire state. Their average systems involvement, so Medicare, Medicaid, DCS, Ignal Justice, all the things Kea shared, their average systems engagement was 3.7. So at this point, when you create a space where that experience is not tokenized, it is that much easier and quicker to create collective healing. And then yeah, we're about 50-50, you know, those who identify as male and female, and we also have a youth fellow who is gender nonconforming. We also, you know, I think we're very intentional about celebrating that and naming that and talking about it. And I think, you know, Kea and I talked about, I mean, we, you know, you can try and you can hope, but at the end of the day, I mean, it's the degree to which the youth lean in, the degree to which they support one another. And, you know, to your question, Molly, about how do you get young men to feel safe and seen. And some of the young men that we had on there who just like, you know, I had multiple of them tell me like this is the first time where I've actually been able to talk about this sort of thing or, you know, process my trauma and not feel like it takes away something of my identity that I really value. So kudos to our young ladies here for making that cool and meaningful and all of that. My answer would be similar to key actually I think poverty is so often at the root of all these issues and it is the core reason that I got into this work in the first place. Yeah, and I think in part the universal universal basic income I think we can have a lot of conversation about the what's the why is the house. I don't know if metrics you put on it but I think that would be really helpful because to key is bringing in, you know, the day reporting work we do with young men who have been on probation or been expelled or suspended, essentially just told that they don't belong in the productive part of our society. They are seen as making poor choices because they are selfish, because they are actively trying to cause harm, and because they are, you know, unchangeable, and they're just bad kids, and you know what we see through our program and what to key is point educational and economic opportunities allows them to be is to actually a have them open up and realize that they made those choices out of unselfish reasons. Sometimes we've had kids come in we had one student who literally was helping fund his mother's education through some of his choices that were illegal. We've had others who were like, I'm trying to feed my siblings or you know they're often making these decisions because they're unselfish, not actively trying to cause harm, though they do sometimes and thirdly because they are changeable and they want to change and so I think UBI could potentially help mitigate some of that lack of access and really hard wall that kids have to break through to even get to healing and then to thriving. I love that point and I think all of you kind of made that global point that you might as well ask somebody to just like fly to the moon if they're hungry or they're unsheltered or don't have some of this basic stability. So those are all really good ideas and certainly hopeful important ones. So as we're kind of nearing the end we've had a couple really good questions in the chat we've touched on some of them. One of them was a very practical question. Kia and Lauren it's probably more for you. When you're preparing these lawmakers to greet someone like Rachel or Tiffany. Is there a toolkit is there a set of talking points. You talked a little bit Kia about making sure that that adults understand triggers as well. How do you begin to prepare them. I think it's just about conversation and what we've also learned is to let the kids kind of help drive that process for us as well. You know we are very youth driven and we take a lot of our cues from them. And when we are speaking with adults and preparing them to even receive our kids it really is about understanding of all the systemic things that come into play so that it's not so targeted and focused on the students behavior. And so I think our job is just to educate about where the gaps in the system are. Obviously about you know a lot of the things that are impacting our youth in our communities and making sure they have a well rounded awareness of where these kids are coming from so that they can appreciate and understand once they are presented with our kids. Great. Lauren would you add anything to that. I just wanted to acknowledge we had a great peer at Foster success Monica who who did to the whole talking point question I think a very practical thing that she said and yeah okay get back to Kia you want to clarify or add more here but it was something to the you can ask sort of questions about what the youth want to see change in response to their experience, but just a very clear statement of like we are not here today into individuals trauma or or hard experiences. Yeah and key I don't know if you would clarify anything there. I think it just goes back to what we were talking about before just making sure that safe that space is safe for them. And again that's you know we put a lot of onus on ourself to make sure that the kids are prepared. You know for those outliers sometimes that may come in how do do we teach them to pivot the conversation to respectfully declined to answer certain questions and so I think it's, it's twofold it's us preparing our students to be able to respond to those situations. And for the adults to understand, you know the limitations as well. That that's a really important line I think between storytelling being incredibly powerful and important and making sure you're not fetishizing an idea or looking for that story that gives you, you know as as the person and power some sort of interesting illustration. An important question come in the chat or kind of a remark and I wanted Jesse to know that we see it, and that is, we are all women on this panel. And that is not lost on me and this is the first of we hope several conversations with Kia and Lauren and other folks at voices related to this youth America idea. I do want to talk to boys and men about those who identify as boys and men, what it's like to engage in in these systems and youth policy. Jesse points out really importantly that the LGBTQ community has some specific issues and questions and opportunities and challenges when it comes to youth advocacy. We have some really important protections we have some friends here in Indianapolis at places like Trinity Haven and and the ACLU who could help us have that conversation. So we do hope that this is the first of many and and that we will have conversations also about very specific issue areas and systems involvement like DCS. We have some foster youth I know at the yes fellows and at voices who have some stories to share and some ideas to share. We have some youth Eva, I did not forget about you on there we have someone from Chicago who's really interested in systemic change and climate change. And she asked how she might be able to connect with some resources and some people. So Eva and anyone in the chat I am at Martin and they are tan at new America dot org. Reach out to me we want to make sure we get connected to folks and get you connected to some advocacy opportunities. And we are coming up here at the end and I want all of you on the panel to know that you're getting major kudos and snaps for sharing your journeys, especially Tiffany and Rachel, and also for sharing the unique story about building this program. I am personally just incredibly appreciative that you've let new America Indianapolis and me just as Molly into this process a little bit it's been a real pleasure in closing here with our last three minutes I'm going to do a quick round robin. I want you to tell me what you hope someone else will build after today's program what do you hope somebody leaves this program and does that's new or different so we'll quickly go around Rachel I'll start with you. I would say to create change, three different mediums. So whether it's written advocacy, like I first started doing, we're speaking out to people, maybe planning an event, or talking to your community first, raising awareness through an event like a 5k run dedicated to whatever you care about just trying to do advocacy through different ways. I love that Tiffany. I love that after listening to all of us that people are encouraged to be vulnerable and to speak out if they see something to talk, because I feel like the first step towards advocacy is to admit that there's problems and to actually like talk about it. Lauren. I hope I'm not, I'm not stealing any of your thunder Kia because this is something we talk about a lot and I know we are both passionate about but just that idea that we like he and I are very aware that we are not the only ones trying to do this and there are so many organizations, especially in India and across Indiana that have committed to including new voice and so the more intentional we as adult facilitators can be connecting the collective power of youth, the better off will be. And Kia with the last word. This one people to recognize how incredibly important young people are in the process of equity and inclusion and shifting the power. I want people to create spaces of leadership for young people within organizations, learn from them be guided by them and trust them. Fantastic why I could not wrap it up better myself. I want to really really thank Rachel lobby Tiffany young here right and Lauren hall for joining us today and being part of this special inside out the Youth America series looking at youth led policy how you build a program and why it matters I want to thank all of you for joining us today. If you've registered for the event you'll receive a copy of the video and information on how to catch up about voices and information about how to read Tiffany and Rachel's work. Again, it's been a real pleasure you having you on inside out thank you on behalf of New America Indianapolis, and our community partners have a wonderful day. Stay safe, stay warm.